


Guardian

by babybrotherdean



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Age Swap, Angel Sam Winchester, Demons, Gen, M/M, Mentions of Character Death, Supernatural Reverseverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-06-06 01:10:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6731713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babybrotherdean/pseuds/babybrotherdean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He knows his parents mean well. His mother loves him and his father tries his best. They both miss Sam, too, and they both want him to be happy. They just don’t really get it.</p>
<p>Sometimes Dean wonders if they cried for him the way they cried for Sam, then decides he doesn’t want to know. Things are easier if he tries to forget.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Guardian

**Author's Note:**

> So!! This is my [Wincest Reverse Bang](http://wincestreversebang.tumblr.com/) entry for this year. I was partnered with the lovely [loracine](http://loracine.livejournal.com/profile), whose art post can be found [here](http://loracine.livejournal.com/20851.html)!
> 
> Anyways- here's this, so... I hope you enjoy it!

Dean has been in this life for too long to back out of it now.

He can’t even really remember his brother. It’s been too many years of fading memories, of half-remembered smiles and the sound of someone’s laughter. A smile and soft eyes and arms around him, keeping him safe.

A scream in the middle of the night and blood painting the walls. Black eyes and a twisted grin.

He’s seventeen years old and can’t remember a time when he wasn’t hunting the thing that killed his brother. Can’t remember a time when people didn’t look at him with pity, with I’m sorry for your loss and he’s in a better place. He hates that he’s come this far, that he’s learned so much about this world within a world, and that all people can see when they look at him is a tragedy. A charity case. Hell; a mental case for everyone who was around when he was a kid. He’s learned now, though; knows better than to go around crying to anyone who’ll listen about the monster that ruined his life. Dean’s been to enough shrinks to know when to keep quiet and when to paste a smile on his face, and it just happened to work long enough to make it out of the hellhole he used to call home.

He knows his parents mean well. His mother loves him and his father tries his best. They both miss Sam, too, and they both want him to be happy. They just don’t really get it.

Sometimes Dean wonders if they cried for him the way they cried for Sam, then decides he doesn’t want to know. Things are easier if he tries to forget.

The bartender looks too much like his mother to make it easy on him.

“You sure you should be in here, honey?” she asks, too think a drawl to be familiar but the blonde curls have him glancing away, regardless. “Nicer places for a kid to spend his time.”

“M’not a kid.” Dean doesn’t look up from his glass, thumbs a smear through the condensation that frosts the surface. Coke because he left his fake in the motel room and he’s not in the mood to flirt his way to passing for twenty-one. “I’m waiting for someone.”

“If you say so.” He feels her eyes linger on him for another long few seconds before moving away, and he breathes out slow with relief. He never knows how to respond to motherly types; leaving his family behind is still an open wound and they drudge up too many feelings he’d rather do without. It hadn’t taken him long to learn that this job is one best done detached from human interaction when possible, and he’s nothing if not good at it.

Dean’s ordered another drink by the time someone joins him, so he doesn’t do them the immediate courtesy of looking up. It’s not that Singer’s late; it’s more that Dean’s in a hell of a mood and he’s not quite worked himself up to this meeting yet. The guy’s supposed to be one of the best, the man to talk to when it comes to demons, and for the nine-hour trip to South Dakota, this had better be worth it. 

“You shouldn’t be here, Dean.”

And that’s near got Dean jumping right out of his seat, because the low, gentle voice is far from what he expects of the man he spoke with on the phone. When he turns to look at Singer- well.

“You’re not Singer.”

The guy’s too young, first of all. Older than Dean, sure, but not the surly middle-aged man he’s been keeping an eye out for. He might be twenty-five at a stretch but even that feels like an overestimate, and even so, he _reads_ as older. There’s something in the expression he’s wearing and the way he holds himself that hints at experience beyond his years, and maybe it’s not so hard to believe he might be in this business, after all.

“Correct.” It earns him one delicately cocked eyebrow, but not a whole lot else. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“No, I’m pretty sure _you_ shouldn’t be here, buddy.” Dean narrows his eyes and looks the guy up and down, but even on the second pass, he doubts he’d win a physical fight without the element of surprise or the knife in his boot, and the last thing he wants to do is spill blood over something like this. “I’m waiting for someone, and you ain’t him.”

“You should leave.” The man turns his eyes towards the bar, but even with the loss of eye contact, Dean feels like he’s being watched. “It isn’t safe for you, being here.”

“Y’know, just because you keep saying doesn’t doesn’t mean I’m gonna start to listen.” Dean snorts, turns back to his drink. “I don’t know what kind of creepy game you’re playing, buddy, but if you know what’s good for you, you’ll get lost. 

There’s silence at his side for several long seconds, and Dean stares stubbornly at his tumbler, swirling the last few drops of liquid around the bottom of the glass like he’s got all the time in the world. Finally, there’s a sigh and a shift of weight beside him. “Be careful, Dean,” is the last thing the guy says before he moves away.

Singer shows up a few minutes later while Dean is distracted trying to figure out how the fuck a complete stranger could have known his name.

-

The demon’s been leaving enough footprints to put him in Salvation, Iowa, and Dean hits the road. Singer tries to discourage him the way he always does, but Dean brushes the warnings aside because he’s not going to let himself be deterred from the path he’s set himself on. He’s thrown so much of his life down this path that he doesn’t exactly have anything to turn back towards, regardless; this has become a one-way road with a single possible destination, and he’s long since made his peace with it.

When he makes it to town, Dean isn’t sure what he expects- lightning storms, chaos, sulphur thick in the air- but as it happens, everything seems entirely too normal. He steps off the bus with a frown on his face and a bag over his shoulder, ready for the Pleasantville illusion to fall away, but the other passengers file out behind him and fire doesn’t start raining from the sky. It’s a nice day, actually, and the sun warms his skin as he tilts his head back and breathes.

This could be it. He’s close this time, and if he finds the kid before the demon does and manages to catch the thing off-guard-

He doesn’t know what he’ll do if this ends, but he’s got plenty of time to figure it out.

Dean’s had years to work out the demon’s MO, and the children it’s gone after have all fit a similar profile. His first stop is the library, praying the whole way that he can get his hands on some public records. He’s too young to convince most people that he’s any sort of official, and maybe it would’ve been smart to take Singer’s offer of partnership for this hunt, but the idea of the older man watching his every move and trying to talk him out of his revenge- he’s gotten enough of it from others to know that it’ll only serve to irritate and distract him. He works best alone, and when he’s this close to getting the demon he’s been after his whole life, the distaste for interference overpowers whatever benefit teamwork could’ve possibly offered him.

The librarian is plenty helpful when Dean puts a smile on his face and plays the part of the curious student, trying to scrape together a local genealogy for a school project. He finds himself the birth certificates he needs and skims through all the young children he can find, scribbling down names and dates as he goes. He doesn’t know what his timeframe is for the demon to arrive, but a total of four children are turning six months old in the next two weeks, and he breathes out slow. Four kids to keep an eye on, and four chances at the demon. 

He won’t fuck this up. He can’t lose this.

-

Salvation is a nice town. Quiet, peaceful. The people are friendly and no one looks at him twice when he lingers on the sidewalk by the Holt residence, hoping to catch a glimpse of the family before he sets up for a stakeout tonight. Maybe he can warn them. Maybe he’ll get lucky and convince them that they’re in danger; if he could get them to listen to him and let him set a trap for the demon, he might actually be able to win this, but the chances of that are always slim and he’s more likely to be labelled a lunatic and chased away. It probably isn’t worth taking the chance.

He doesn’t think much of the mother pushing a stroller down the sidewalk until she turns into the very driveway he’s keeping an eye on, and it occurs to him that it’s probably the exact baby he’s looking for- Rosie Holt- and he scrambles for something to say before it’s too late.

“Mrs. Holt!” She turns to face him and Dean smiles, tries to look like he knows what he’s doing here. “Sorry, hi- my name’s Dean, and I was wondering if you’d considered renewing your subscription to the Salvation Sentinel? Best to be ready for Judgement Day.”

It seems to catch her off-guard, and he can only hope that his pasted-on smile is enough to convince her that he’s at least a little bit legit. “I… I thought we’d already renewed our subscription for the year,” she says slowly, and Dean breathes a soundless sigh of relief.

“Of course, I just wanted to make sure everything was in order.” He steps a little closer and takes the excuse to segue the conversation as he glances down towards the stroller, smile going a little softer and a little more genuine. “My mistake. Who’s this?”

If Dean’s good at anything, it’s convincing people he’s trustworthy- comes with the territory of working this job- and the woman only hesitates for a moment before returning his smile. “This is Rosie,” she tells him as if Dean didn’t already know. “And, um- I’m Monica. If you didn’t get that from your list or whatever.”

“Right.” Dean smiles again and peeks down at Rosie. She looks normal enough; there’s certainly nothing to her that screams _marked by demons_. “Hey, kid.”

Monica laughs, rolling the stroller gently back and forth as Rosie yawns and stretches her legs. “It’s almost nap time, isn’t it, sweetheart?”

“I shouldn’t keep you.” Dean smiles and gives her a little nod as he steps back. “Sorry for the confusion with the, uh, paper thing. Have a nice day.”

He’s gone before she has the chance to respond, plans and ideas and worst-case scenarios tripping over themselves in his head. He knows without asking that she’ll dismiss any suggestion of supernatural danger, not even a damn cross around her neck to suggest she might be open to being talked into the idea of divine intervention. He doesn’t have a whole lot of options now, and every seconds that ticks by is one less that can be dedicated to figuring out how to save that family.

Dean walks into what feels like a human-sized wall and is abruptly pulled out of his thoughts by the steadying hands on his arms and the low, concerned voice that comes from above him. “I thought I told you this wasn’t safe, Dean.”

So he looks up and squints in the sunlight and has no trouble recognizing the guy from the bar. He seems taller like this, bigger and wider and backlit with warm light. “Did you follow me?”

As expected, his question is ignored. “You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into.”

“And you don’t know who you’re talking to.” Dean shakes off the hands on his arms and turns away, breathing out hard. Motel. He can find a motel and regroup before it’s time to stake out the house. “Leave me alone.”

He makes it three steps and then suddenly the guy is _there_ again, defying every law of movement like he only exists to block Dean’s path, and it’s getting increasingly irritating. “You’re going to get yourself hurt.”

“Who are you?” Dean demanded, quickly losing his patience as he looked up at the taller man. His expression was even and stony, regarding Dean with a passive sort of concern. “What do you know about me besides my name?”

A moment of quiet, and the guy finally looks away, thoughtful. “Much more than you could hope to understand,” he murmurs, and as if that isn’t baffling enough, he continues. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll listen to me. Revenge will do you no good. Not here.”

“Then I guess it’s too bad I don’t know what’s good for me.” Dean gives the guy another long, distrustful look before pointedly stepping around him. “Just- leave me alone. I’ve got work to do.”

He isn’t followed, and the guy doesn’t try to stop him again. All the same, Dean finds himself checking as he walks, looking for tall figures or lingering shadows. He can’t put a name to the uneasiness he feels now, but it’s getting in his head and that’s the last thing he needs going into such an important hunt tonight. It’s hard to shake the feeling until he gets himself a room for the evening, closing and locking the door behind him for good measure.

From then on, it’s just a matter of waiting, and Dean happens to be very good at it. It just so happens that this time, he spends it with a hazel-eyed stranger lingering in his mind, surrounded by a whole lot of questions with very few answers.

At least he has time to wonder.

-

Night comes too quickly. Dean barely has the patience to wait for the sun to set all the way, checking and re-checking his gear to the point of obsession. When the light finally faded from the sky, he was moving, bag slung over his shoulder and moving with purpose, counting each step between his room and Monica’s home like it’s a matter of life and death.

He knows better than anyone else that it is.

He turns onto her street and sees the house in the distance, lit dimly by its second-story windows. He doesn’t get much warning before a shape seems to morph out of the shadows to his left, a hand clamping down on his wrist with surprising strength and its twin covering his mouth just as quickly.

“I’m not here to hurt you.” 

And it’s that damn _voice_ again, the same one belonging to the man who seems to have been stalking him for the past several days. Dean glares at the vague outline of his face, waiting until his mouth is freed to whisper angrily. “I thought I told you to leave me alone?”

“And I told you to abandon this mission, and yet here you are.” The man seems to be entirely unfazed, but hasn’t moved out of Dean’s way. Time is running out, and Dean’s about to snap at him again before he speaks, low and serious. “Is there anything I can say to deter you from what you’re about to do, Dean?”

The question is a surprise, and Dean blinks, but shakes his head slowly. “Not a damn thing,” he says simply. “I’ve got a job to do, and I’m not walking away just ‘cause some guy who’s been following me around tells me to.” He pauses, then, squints through the darkness. “You still haven’t told me who you are.”

“Call me Sam.” Dean doesn’t have any time for that to hurt, because the guy- Sam- is already moving, turning towards Monica’s house. “If you’re dead-set on doing this, then you’re not going to do it alone.”

Dean should protest. He doesn’t know this man, whether he’s another hunter or a stalker or even a monster. Hell; he could be the very demon that Dean’s after for all he knows. But if there’s anything Dean doesn’t have right now, it’s time to ask questions; there’s no telling when the demon will strike, and he isn’t going to sit back and let some stranger stop him from saving this family.

“Fine,” he hisses, antsy with every wasted second. “Just- follow my lead, okay? Don’t do anything stupid.”

There’s silence behind him, but it occurs to Dean that Sam doesn’t seem like the type to act on impulse or stupidity. All the same, he’s wary, keeps one eye behind him as he hurries up the sidewalk towards the right house. He doesn’t know what to expect when he gets there, and hates to admit that having backup may be beneficial, if the guy has any idea of what he’s doing. 

When they make it to the end of the driveway, Dean turns to Sam, half-crouched to stay out of sight. The last thing they need is for a worried neighbour to call the cops right now. “There is a demon on its way to attack this family,” he says, low and deliberate. If Sam doesn’t know what he’s getting into already he’ll sure as hell find out now. “And we’re going to stop it. I’m not letting that son of a bitch hurt anyone else.”

Sam frowns, but doesn’t probe too deep. “How do you plan to stop it?”

And Dean stays quiet for a very long few seconds before breathing out hard and turning back towards the house. Details. “Just let me worry about that, okay?”

He’s so busy worrying about Sam at his back and Sam asking too many questions that he very nearly misses the unnatural light starting to flood the window upstairs.

It’s starting.

Dean doesn’t allow himself to think; he’s up and moving a heartbeat later, doesn’t so much as bother to check if Sam’s following him. He doesn’t have time to question this, to question the intelligence of barging in on a demon, unarmed and unprepared, but this could be the last chance he’ll ever get at the bastard, and he isn’t going to let it slip away from him.

The front door is locked, as they tend to be this late at night, but there’s a massive window to the left of it that isn’t hard to smash. Sam doesn’t say a word, just follows Dean’s lead while he kicks glass out of the way and rushes inside. The smell of smoke is already thick in his nose, and he can’t tell how much of it is real and how much of it is a memory brought back- the flames must still be contained upstairs, and Dean isn’t about to let fragments of his past slow him down when it matters most.

“Nursery,” he snaps, but Sam’s already moving towards the stairs and it’s Dean who ends up following him, damn near tripping over himself trying to rush. He hears shouting upstairs, an infant’s cries, and knows it’s here. The demon who started this all is mere feet away, and Dean doesn’t know what he’s going to do when they come face-to-face for the first time in years.

It doesn’t slow him down any as he rips around the corner to follow the heat of the fire.

Everything is just the same as he remembers. Monica’s been pinned to the wall, but she’s slowly being forced up higher, screaming and crying as she tries to reach for Rosie’s crib. The baby herself is distressed, crying for her mother and reaching up towards-  
“Dean Winchester.” The voice is unfamiliar, but there’s a slimy quality to it that rings of Dean’s nightmares. It’s almost got him physically moving away, but the demon is leaning over Rosie’s crib and Dean isn’t going to let the fucker hurt her. “Why am I not surprised?”

Dean’s armed, but his weapons have never felt as powerless as they do right now. He knows from hearsay and his own experience that bullets won’t cut it, and this is as far ahead as he’s managed to plan. Confronted with the demon, now, it’s all he can do to keep his lungs working to fill his body with oxygen. Even that feels like too much when the demon turns to face him, his eyes luminescent and a sickening yellow hue in the darkness. His attention only lingers with Dean a moment, though, because apparently the man behind him is of more interest.

There’s a split second when Dean could swear that the demon actually looks _afraid_.

“You have no place here,” he says roughly, and then Dean’s thrown to the side, breath driven from his body with the force of hitting the wall. It’s hard to hear the rest of the words, spoken low and fast like they’re not meant for his ears. “Stooping a little low, aren’t you-?”

“You’ve caused enough damage here, demon.” And then Dean’s watching Sam’s eyes light up, glowing with a bluish-white heat that hurts to experience, and the demon’s barely got time to scream as Sam’s hand finds his forehead. It’s too much to watch, and Dean squeezes his eyes shut with the shrieking that fills the room, overpowering even the sounds of the flames, and when he opens them again, the meatsuit is on the floor, eye sockets empty and charred.

He’s speechless, breathing hard, barely remembers that the room’s on fire until the heat becomes too much for him and he stumbles back to his feet. Monica is unconscious, dropped sometime during the struggle, and Dean hardly has the mind to scoop Rosie out of her crib. “Sam- you… grab her.”

Sam’s gone dead silent, but does as he’s told, and Dean leads the way out of the house. It’s easier to focus on this than it is to try to confront the reality of what he’s just watched. Firetrucks are already circling when they make it out, and he hands off the baby to her wakening mother at the first opportunity and doesn’t stick around to say goodbye. It’s a matter of staggering as far out of sight as he can manage before someone starts asking questions. 

Perhaps it was too much to hope that he’d make it this far alone.

“What are you?” His voice is quiet, raspy with the smoke he’s managed to inhale, and he doesn’t look at Sam as he speaks. They’ve made it down the street and he stops to slump heavily against a low stone wall, struggling to catch his breath. “Who the hell are you? Is Sam even your name?”

“Yes.” Sam only keeps his distance for a moment while Dean pants, and then he’s stepping up close. Dean doesn’t have time to react when a pair of fingertips brush his forehead and he feels his lungs clearing up all at once, air rushing into them clean and uninhibited. It’s startling, and Dean looks up sharply into eyes that have returned to a soft hazel hue. “That’s my name, Dean. I’m not sure you’d believe me if I told you what I was, though.”

“Yeah? I just watched you kill a demon.” Dean snorts, shakes his head. “Try me.”

A few quiet seconds, and Sam clears his throat gently. “I’m what you would call an angel. At least, I am now.” He doesn’t expand on that, and Dean doesn’t ask. “I’ve been watching you for some time, Dean. Protecting you. It just happens that this was the first time my direct interference was so required. How did you plan to deal with that demon?”

Dean doesn’t have a good answer for that, so he shrugs, looks at his shoes. They’re ash-smudged and tattered, and he scuffs them against the sidewalk. “Worked out okay, didn’t it?” Pauses a moment and breathes out hard. “Angels aren’t real.”

“And yet here I stand.” He almost sounds amused, but grows somber again a moment later. “It isn’t safe to hunt alone. Are you going to step back now? You’ve gotten your revenge.”

And it hits Dean suddenly that this is it. That was the demon that’d wreaked so much havoc on his life, and the thing was dead. Sam had killed it like it was nothing, and the realization is staggering. He doesn’t know what to do with it, feeling oddly numb to what he knows should be a victory. “What else am I supposed to do?”

“Whatever you want.” A sigh, and Sam’s weight shifts. His fingertips brush Dean’s face again, but there’s no magic behind his touch as they skim over a cheekbone. Dean has no explanation for the warmth he feels with this man- this _angel_ \- he barely knows. Something runs deep here and he doesn’t have a name for it. “You deserve a better life than this.”

“I didn’t exactly leave much of a life to go back to.” Dean thinks of the tattered relationship he has with his parents, his unfinished education and handful of fake identities. He’s effectively ruined himself for society, and the thought is a salve on the limbo he’s found himself in. Sam’s hand is warm, and he presses closer without really thinking about it, eyes fluttering shut. Maybe he’s in shock after the encounter with the demon, but everything feels distant, and it’s easier not to question it. “Hunting’s all I’ve got anymore.”

Sam’s quiet, and his thumb rubs along the line of Dean’s jaw. When he speaks, there’s a fondness to his voice that Dean associates with laughter and holding hands, and his chest gets tight. “Then I’m not going to let you do it alone. You might not know me, but I’m going to take care of you.”

When a cool pair of lips brush his forehead, whisper-soft and gentle, Dean almost doesn’t catch the words breathed out against his skin. Perhaps things will be easier if he pretends he hasn’t heard them at all.

“I’m here, little brother. I’ve got you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! <3


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